Grieving Father Arrested After Seeking Vengeance for 7-Year-Old Son's Death

Vigilante justice. Once in a while, it works out for the vengeance seeker -- such as for the Texas dad who beat a man to death after he caught him trying to molest his 4-year-old. The father was never charged. Most of the time, however, it does not. Someone does something terrible, you do something terrible back, and you're both in prison, or only you are. That whole two wrongs don't make a right thing that we all learned in first grade.

In the case of Alabama dad Kenneth Kendrick Sims, it's perfectly understandable why he'd want to allegedly go after a relative with a gun and knife. It was because he had reason to believe that the relative was responsible for the death of his 7-year-old son, J’Duan Hill. As we read about so often, little J'Duan found a gun in a home. And while playing with it, he shot and killed himself. J'Duan's father, Sims, decided to get revenge on the relative who he believed owned the gun that killed his son.

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Officers had to respond twice within 24 hours to a home in Mobile, Alabama. First, when little J'Duan was playing in the home of relatives and discovered a gun that was hidden away. He placed it to his head, pulled the trigger, and killed himself.

Not long afterward, police were called again. This time, J'Duan's dad had shown up with his own gun and also a knife. He was looking for the relative who owned the gun that had killed his boy.

Two other relatives obtained cuts while trying to get the grieving dad to leave. Then outside the home, another fight started and Sims ended up firing, hitting a relative -- though it's unclear if it was the relative he had originally come for.

So now Sims is in jail on assault charges -- while the relative with the gun is free because police believe the child's death was an accident and won't file charges. See how vengeance works?

I can't blame the dad one bit for his feelings. He must have been absolutely enraged and grief-stricken. You send your kid to a relative's home, you expect your child to be safe. You expect if there are guns in the home, they are locked away or at least not loaded. I do not know the gun laws in Mobile, Alabama, but apparently whatever happened was not illegal.

But coming after someone with a knife and gun deliberately is. And now Sims will have to spend his time grieving his child in jail. Hopefully, he will be shown some mercy given the circumstances.

Do you think the dad should have been arrested? What about the relative?